


I'll Take a Piece of Your Soul and Keep it Safe

by SolariaLunar21



Series: a piece of your soul for a piece of mine [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Fluff, Happy Ending, M/M, Mentions of Scott McCall/Isaac Lahey - Freeform, Minor Lydia Martin/Stiles Stilinski, Post-Canon, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, slight canon divergance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:48:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24497458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SolariaLunar21/pseuds/SolariaLunar21
Summary: When he’s 10 Stiles holds hands with a boy in the Sheriff’s station who has just lost almost everyone he loves and wishes that he could do something to make that boy happy. His wrist burns really bad when he does but he refuses to pull his hand away until his Dad comes to take him home. The next morning when he’s brushing his teeth, he notices the green Derek scrawled across his wrist.
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Series: a piece of your soul for a piece of mine [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1761649
Comments: 9
Kudos: 472





	I'll Take a Piece of Your Soul and Keep it Safe

**Author's Note:**

> Here is the companion piece too A Little Piece of Your Soul that I posted on Wednesday, this time the events from Stiles' POV. It isn't necessary to read the other fic first but I think they definitely complement each other. There are a couple scenes that are a slight divergence from canon, ie: a couple of conversations that take place between Scott and Stiles. But other than that everything that happens in canon happens here, character deaths and all.

When he’s 10 Stiles holds hands with a boy in the Sheriff’s station who has just lost almost everyone he loves and wishes that he could do something to make that boy happy. His wrist burns really bad when he does but he refuses to pull his hand away until his Dad comes to take him home. The next morning when he’s brushing his teeth, he notices the green _Derek_ scrawled across his wrist.

“Dad, look! I have a name!” he says holding his wrist out for his father to see.

“When did you get this?” his father asks looking at the green letters that Stiles is starting to think of as his favorite color. Closely followed by Lydia Martin’s strawberry blonde hair.

“While I was sleeping, I think, isn’t it cool? No one my age has a name yet and I do!”

His dad then sits him down and asks him to go through everything that happened at the station the night before. Stiles is honest and tells him even though his dad slips up a few times and calls him Mischief, which Stiles has told him he no longer wants to be called now that Mom’s gone. Then his dad talks to him about imprinting, says what happened last night was incredibly special.

His dad calls the station because apparently the boy from last night’s name is _Derek_ just like the name on Stiles’ wrist which means he’s Stiles’ soulmate. He wants to bring Laura, Derek’s sister, and Derek home to them, but they’re too late. Laura and Derek have disappeared, no one knows where they could possibly be. It makes something inside of Stiles very sad to think that he lost his soulmate already when he’s just found him. After that news, his dad buys him a cuff to wear just like the one his dad started wearing when Mom died.

“Why do I have to wear the cuff dad?” 

“You don’t have too, but buddy I’d feel a little bit better if you did,” his dad replies and Stiles refuses to make his dad any sadder than he already is with Mom gone so he puts the cuff on. (Years later when Stiles knows the whole story, he realizes his father suspected even then that the Hale Fire wasn’t due to faulty wiring and he wanted to keep Stiles safe from whoever wanted the Hale family dead.)

Stiles takes the cuff off to show Scott two days later who he swears to secrecy.

“Wow, it’s so cool that you’ve got a soulmate already!”

“I know isn’t it! Dad says it’s super-duper rare too, which ya know obviously means I’m like extra cool or something.”

“Totally…Derek’s a boy name though isn’t it?”

“Is that not okay?” Stiles asks.

“It’s totally okay dude, I just thought it would say like Lydia’s name or something considering how much you like her,” Scott replies.

“No, Dad says that’s not how imprinting works.”

“Imprinting what’s that?” 

“It’s what happened to make Derek’s name show up on my wrist. He said that I did something that changed my fate. I don’t really know what that means but I’m sure I’ll figure it out.” 

“If anyone could it’d be you!”

Stiles grows up and starts to understand what imprinting really means. By the time he’s thirteen he realizes that what he’d done wishing for Derek to be happy made his soul change just enough to match the other boys and made them soulmates. He also understood that it really was only possible because the person who originally matched Derek’s soul was either dead or would be by the time Derek turned 18.

When Stiles is 16, he sees his soulmate for the first time in six years. It leaves him speechless, a feat that is quite impossible on a normal day. Obviously bumping into the guy that he quite literally changed his soul for is no normal day. Derek doesn’t seem to recognize him, Stiles isn’t surprised, he doesn’t remember either of the Hale siblings looking at him.

Hours later he concludes that Scott is a werewolf. Also, that his soulmate is one too. It changes everything and nothing all at once. Derek wears a cuff on his wrist, Stiles isn’t sure why, but he can’t say he’s too upset no one needs to see the monstrosity that is Stiles’ first name every single day that’s for sure.

Stiles tells his father that Derek killed the girl in the woods. He feels ashamed that he’d do that to his soulmate, but Derek is let out when it becomes clear it wasn’t him and that the body was his sisters. Stiles and his father have a long talk after about age of consent laws in the state of California that ends with Stiles promising that he won’t try to do anything with Derek while he’s underage. 

Derek gets shot; Stiles’ wrist burns the whole day until Scott brings the bullet that saves him. Stiles wants to ask a hundred times why Derek wears a cuff. He never does, figures Derek wouldn’t say why even if he did. The night at the school Stiles watches as Derek is gutted and feels the mark burn on wrist. Wonders why fate would let him imprint on Derek if he was just going to die anyways before Stiles got to have him. Later that night Stiles looks at his wrist only to find that Derek’s name is still written in brilliant emerald green and cries in relief. 

Derek never asks Stiles about why he wears a cuff. Never asks what name Stiles’ already has. Stiles is sure Derek has no clue that the _Mieczyslaw_ on his wrist and the hyperactive spaz he likes to threaten with his teeth are one and the same. He won’t ever say a word, he’s still only sixteen and he’s really not ready to be with his soulmate yet (Stiles promises himself again when he realizes exactly what happened between Derek and Kate before the Fire. He never wants his soulmate to feel like that monster). Realizes that even though he's not ready to be with him he's fallen in love with his soulmate. 

Life moves on after they kill Peter and Lydia is in the hospital. Stiles helps his friends fight a Kanima and feels his heart break when the girl he’s in love with (because polyamory is totally a thing even if Stiles will never have Lydia’s name on his wrist) proves that she’s in love with someone else. Except Jackson leaves, Stiles doesn’t let himself hope. For either of them.

Summer fly’s by quickly in a haze of heat, Derek asks for help with the Alpha Pack, Stiles doesn’t tell Scott. Likes that his soulmate asked just Stiles for help. The school year starts, and the monsters start crawling out of the woodwork again.

One-night Stiles’ mark starts to burn, he watches as Derek’s name flickers between grey and emerald green for hours leading into the next day. It’s not until partway through the drive while he sits in the back of the bus with Scott that the mark stops burning. While no one is watching he undoes the cuff slightly so he can see that Derek’s name is emerald green once more. Stiles doesn’t say anything. Not with the twins in hearing distance. He wonders if Scott even remembers that the name Stiles guards so closely on his wrist is Derek’s. When it becomes obvious that Scott still isn’t healing, he devises a plan to get them off the bus.

Stiles stays while Allison stitches Scott up keeping a lookout so no one comes in, and after Scott wakes up Stiles tells Allison to go wait outside for a moment. He waits until the door is closed behind him before approaching Scott who is putting his shirt back on. Stiles undoes his cuff; his wrist hasn’t burned for hours so he knows without looking that the name still has its color and he holds it out to Scott.

“He’s still alive Scott the name is green not grey so he’s still alive,” Stiles whispers as Scott takes it in. Scott’s eyes are just as wide as they were the day Stiles showed him when they were ten.

“Stiles….” It’s all Scott says obviously drawing the correct conclusions that he’d failed too months before.

“Figures huh, my dumbass ten-year-old self went and imprinted on a werewolf,” he states a little teary eyed.

“At least he’s not turning random teenagers anymore,” Scott tries to joke which causes Stiles to laugh.

“Yeah well he’s still got more issues than a fucking phone book. I doubt it’ll ever happen.”

“You love him though don’t you,” Scott states eyes staring intently at Stiles’. 

“So much I can’t breathe sometimes.” 

“He doesn’t know you’re his soulmate.” It’s not a question, even so Stiles shakes his head. Stiles helps Scott up; he puts his cuff back on and they don’t talk about it again.

Then the Darach takes his father. Scott and Stiles rush to Derek. Stiles begs with his words and with his soul that Derek will believe them. Draws on whatever it was from the fates that allowed him to imprint on Derek when Ms. Blake, the Darach, is in front of them that he will believe them. Derek does and Stiles’ soul sings in response even with the devastation that still runs through his veins at the fact that his father is still missing.

Deaton tries to get him to admit who his is soulmate before the ritual. Stiles refuses, Derek doesn’t deserve to find out from Deaton of all people that Stiles is his soulmate. Plus, Cora is more important. Lydia is his anchor instead. He thinks about his father. Thinks about Lydia’s lips on his from that afternoon. Thinks about Derek’s hand wrapped around his wrist in the elevator. Then he lets go.

Stiles saves his father. Darkness surrounds his heart. Derek leaves Beacon Hills. He starts to lose his mind. Can’t read Derek’s name on his wrist. It turns into a gibberish of symbols and letters in emerald green. At some point Derek comes back. Then…

The Nogitsune takes over. Stiles does everything in his power to keep his secret safe. Guards the knowledge of his soulmate safe. He sleeps with Malia under questionable circumstances. It’s the last thing he remembers before he’s stuck in his own mind playing Go. Then Scott howl’s and Stiles’ head snaps up.

Something happens and the next thing he knows he’s sitting in the McCall’s living room. When the shock wears off that Lydia is gone the world moves into motion. Stiles waits until it’s only himself and Scott in the room. Refuses to look at his wrist for the fear that the name is no longer there, he holds it out for Scott and asks,

“Is it still there?”

“Yeah buddy, still green he’s safe.” Stiles lets himself look and sags into the chair when he sees Derek’s name still written on his skin. He honestly doesn’t know what he would do if the Nogitsune had taken Derek from him as well.

“Get me something to cover it please.”

Scott gives him a scrap of fabric that they tie around his wrist covering the name up. Later after he’s hugged his father his Dad reaches into a drawer and hands Stiles a back-up cuff. He’s grateful and unties the fabric before placing the new cuff on his wrist. They’d let him keep it in Eichen House, but the Nogitsune wore it now. Stiles wasn’t sure if the name would be on its skin, he never wanted to know.

Then Allison’s dead and Stiles tells Derek while Lydia stands next to him. Stiles still feels cold deep in his bones. Finally, they win. The Nogitsune is gone. Stiles passes out.

He wakes up in the whited-out Sheriff’s station like he’s in Harry Potter to find Talia Hale standing there.

“Am I dead?”

“No, just in the in between place.”

“Is Derek dead?” 

“No, he’s alive, thanks to you he’ll stay that way for a long time,” Talia remarks a smile tugging at her lips.

“Good,” he says nodding his head. He doesn’t know what else to say to what he can only assume is the ghost of his soulmates dead mother. They’re both silent, she reminds him of Derek. He tells her so. She smiles and replies,

“Be patient Mieczyslaw, one day he’ll come to you,” She grips the back of his neck in a light squeeze. Stiles wakes up.

This time Aidan’s dead. They all mourn for those they lost. All of a sudden Derek’s missing again. Stiles’ mark starts to burn shortly after they realize it. It doesn’t stop for weeks. Not until Derek is standing in front of them at the high school no longer his teenage self. He never once looks at it. Malia never asks him about it. He wears the cuff all the time. Only takes it off in the shower.

Stiles knows Derek’s with Braeden, and even though he’s with Malia it never hurts any less. Then Derek’s name breaks the last piece of the code, he’s marked for dead. Stiles heart ends up in his throat. Scott lets him cry in his arms one night when no one else is around.

It happens so fast. The Berserker stabs Derek. Stiles’ wrist burns. Derek tells him to save Scott. Stiles runs and then stops to turn one more time. The truth is in his throat, he wants to let it out, but he can’t. He won’t do that to Derek, knows that it would only hurt Derek more than it would heal him. They run and search for Scott only to find that he’s been changed. Liam saves him.

Stiles wrist doesn’t stop burning. He hears fighting outside. Watches the fight between Scott and Peter. His wrist burns more than it ever has before, and he stumbles into a wall. He undoes his cuff and watches as the brilliant emerald green fades to grey. His heart breaks. Something else inside of him feels untethered he knows it’s his soul. Somewhere beyond him he can hear the fighting between Scott and Peter come to its natural end. All I can focus on is the horrible sickening grey of his soul-mark. He doesn’t know how he’ll move on.

“Stiles?” he doesn’t need to look up to know Scott’s standing over him. He wonders where the others are but he’s sure that they’ve left them alone. Stiles wonders what Malia could be thinking, he won’t ever tell her even if she asks.

“He’s dead,” he whispers eyes not leaving his mark even as tears fill them. Scott pulls him into a hug just as the sound of fighting ceases outside and Stiles’ mark burns again. Pulling out of the hug with Scott he stares at his wrist as the grey turns emerald green once again, “how…please tell me I’m not hallucinating.” 

“No, it totally changed back, what do you think it means?” 

“I don’t know.”

It means that Derek evolved that, he can shift into actual wolf now. Derek tells them he’s leaving Beacon Hills. For good this time, Stiles’ heart hurts but he knows that all that lies in Beacon Hills for Derek is more pain. All Stiles has ever wanted since that first moment is for Derek to be happy. If leaving will do that, then Stiles will let his heart hurt for the rest of his life. Stiles lets himself hug his soulmate for the first time. Wishes that he could say something, but he won’t. So, he stands next to Malia, holds her hand in his and watches Derek drive away with Braeden.

Six months pass. Nothing happens. Then everything happens all at once. Stiles’ anxiety goes through the roof. Wonders if he should’ve properly dealt with the trauma the Nogitsune left behind. He kills Donovan. It was in self-defense, but it leaves a mark. He can’t tell anyone. Sits and stares at his phone for hours sometimes the words _I killed someone_ staring at him in a message meant for Derek. He never sends it.

Scott finds out. Kicks him out of the pack. Stiles wants to throw up. His dad almost dies. Lydia is in Eichen. He breaks up with Malia. His world is falling apart. But then….

The pack comes back together. Scott listens. They heal. They save Lydia. Stiles feels his heart race as she breathes again in his arms. Realizes with such startling clarity that he still loves her. Wonders if she could ever love him.

They fight the Beast. They save Mason. Theo is sent to hell. Things calm down. Stiles doesn’t, feels like something is just waiting right around the corner. The Wild Hunt takes him and before they do, he texts Derek he’s sorry. He’s stuck for three months with no way out. Everyone who is important has forgotten him. Until…until…Lydia? She saves him. She never said it back but it’s okay. He kisses her. Feels his heart burst in his chest. They have two peaceful months before school ends. Lydia’s wrist stays nameless. Scott’s says _Isaac_ in brilliant Beta gold, he’s shocked. Stiles laughs and tells Scott that he isn’t.

The first day of his internship they show a video of Derek running through the woods of North Carolina. Stiles texts him that night. He never gets a response. He convinces them to take him on the field operation. He saves Derek, no really, he totally does, he loses part of his toe too.

“Are you going to go back?” He asks when Derek’s wrapped his toe up for him and he’s heard everything that’s happening in Beacon Hills.

“Only if you do,” Derek replies.

“Like I wouldn’t go.”

Its torture being with Derek in such a small space for days as they travel to Beacon Hills. He texts Lydia, she acts like she has been for weeks. Like nothing is wrong. They’ve all acted that way. They fight. The dust settles. It’s a win but not for long. Scott stays in Beacon Hills, forgoes UC Davis. Lydia finally goes to MIT. Stiles returns to George Washington and his internship. When they’re needed, they fight, Lydia’s wrist stays nameless for months. Then a year goes by. Stiles loves her. She loves him. He never shows her his wrist. For a long time, she never asks.

“How come you’ve never showed me the name on your wrist?” she questions him one morning. He’s visited her for a long weekend. It’s the calm before the storm. They’re both naked under the sheets. The cuff on his wrist is the only thing either of them is wearing.

“Does it matter?”

“It’s been two years…I feel like it matters.”

“And I’m saying it doesn’t,” he replies before kissing her. He sneaks a hand under the sheets and makes her forget her questions the best way he knows how.

It’s not the last time she brings it up. At first, it’s the only thing they fight about, soon it’s not just that. But he won’t show her. Won’t show her that his wrist says _Derek_ when hers still says nothing. He wants to keep her as long as he can. Because he knows if she ever gets a name the game will be up. His heart and hers will be shattered. He hates it. Because he’d have to tell her that she’s not the only one he loves. Because god he still loves Derek. So much that it still hurts to breathe sometimes.

His heart stops every time his wrist burns. It starts again every time that the name stays emerald green. The final battle comes. Monroe’s people vs theirs. A hunter aims for Stiles, a death shot if there ever was one. Derek jumps in front of the bullet. Stiles digs it out cursing the whole time this stupid idiot werewolf. It thankfully didn’t hit his heart. It’s also not laced with wolfsbane. Stiles thinks the hunters are getting sloppy.

“Gotta stop meeting like this,” joking because this isn’t the first time that Derek’s taken a bullet for him over the past almost three years.

“If you stopped jumping in front of guns we would.”

“Right now isn’t the time for that unfortunately.”

The fighting ends soon after. Stiles returns to his last semester of school, how he’s finishing in just over three years instead of four is a mystery to all except for him. AP classes were a bitch in high school but at least he got to skip on most of his pre-requisites. Once he’s graduated, he joins the FBI and gets placed in New York City. Lydia helps him move in. The next day she gets her soul-mark. It’s not his name.

“I knew it wouldn’t be yours,” she tells him staring at the blocky purple letters that spell _Nathan_ across her wrist.

“I’m sorry,” he really has nothing else that he can say. Knows that deep down she must be furious that he would let her think that his name could possibly show up. If he was Scott, he would’ve told her, but he’s Stiles and he sees the world in grey. 

“You know for the longest time I thought I was nameless because you’d been erased. Then you started to get so resistant to even showing me the name you have. I finally realized I’m not the one your soul chose. And it kills me.”

“I do love you; you have to know that. That’s never been a lie.”

“I know, that’s what makes this so hard, because I love you too…but you’ll never share that part of you with me will you?”

“No, I won’t,” he won’t lie about it. He decided years before in the church when Derek died that the next time, he showed someone else the name it would be Derek. Stiles won’t show anyone else until Derek’s seen it.

Lydia leaves. He feels broken open but throws himself into his work as a distraction. Stiles is aware of how unhealthy that is. He impresses his bosses. He works hard. Gets taken on field operations. And then…the world crumbles around him. There’s a Nogitsune. Not the one that possessed Stiles. This time it’s possessing a middle-aged woman. Stiles knows the signs. One of his team members is an Alpha werewolf. They can’t separate the woman from the spirit. She dies when the Alpha bites her along with the Nogitsune. He has a mental breakdown. They take him off field work. He quits instead.

He decides it’s time to stop running away from the decision his soul made when he was ten. Beacon Hills welcomes him. Stiles gets a job in the library. Applies for his master’s in library sciences when he starts to love it. He starts therapy. Knows he probably should’ve started going years before.

He falls into a friendship with Derek easily. He falls more in love each day. His dad approves. Scott tells him to go for it while staring fondly at the Beta gold _Isaac_ on his wrist (Stiles wasn’t surprised when after Monroe Scott immediately went searching for his soulmate and dragged him back with him). But he waits. Remembers a dream he had years before. He’s learned to be patient; he’s waited 14 years what’s a few more?

What Stiles never suspects is that Derek doesn’t know what name he bears on his wrist. The confession shocks him. The next one that Derek loves him shocks him even more. So, he shares his story and bears his wrist. _Derek_ shines so brightly between them as they kiss. 

“Derek and I are together,” he tells his father the next morning. Wrist bare in the sunlight as he sits across from him in his childhood kitchen.

“About damn time son, you two better treat each other right. Soulmates or not.”

“We will…but dad…don’t bring up his cuff okay.”

“He’s still wearing it?” It’s not an out of the box question. Most people don’t continue wearing cuffs after they find their soulmate if they even wore them before.

“Yes, he’s never seen the name under it. I won’t push him to look, there’s a lot of baggage there.”

“I won’t bring it up son.”

Stiles keeps his promise. He never asks Derek to show him. They learn how to work together. The first time they have sex Stiles cries. Derek doesn’t make fun of him. The first time they fight, really truly fight, they stay silent for hours. Derek goes to sleep in the guest room. Stiles cries into his pillow hoping that this isn’t the end of them. In the middle of the night the door to their bedroom creaks open. Derek’s silent when he walks across the floor. Stiles opens his arms wrist tilted so Derek can see his name scrawled there. Derek crawls into them they both hold on for dear life.

“I’m sorry, I know you can handle yourself in a fight,” Derek whispers into the dark between them.

“I’m sorry too, I know you lashed out because you care.” 

“Because I love you,” Derek corrects kissing his name on Stiles wrist afterwards.

“I love you back, more than anything,” Stiles repeats the gesture over Derek’s cuff.

Three days after their anniversary, fifteen years after the Fire, fifteen years after Stiles changed his soul, Derek holds a shaking wrist out for Stiles to hold.

“Will you take it off for me?” Derek’s voice is soft but sure. Stiles needs to ask.

“Are you positive?” Derek nods and repeats himself voice a little bit stronger but no less sure than before.

Stiles’ heart beats loudly in his chest as he cradles Derek’s wrist in his hands. He undoes the snaps and folds the material back. Feels tears well in his eyes as he gazes at the brilliant emerald _Mieczyslaw_ and for the first time since his Mom died, he doesn’t feel a pain in his heart as he looks at it. The name is now the most wonderful gift, he bends to give it a soft kiss a smile pulling at his lips. He meets Derek’s eyes for a moment and watches as for the first time Derek sees Stiles’ name on his wrist. The smile that crosses Derek’s face when he does makes Stiles’ soul sing as the wish, he so yearned for comes true.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this fic, I've got a couple of ideas brewing to write some more in this verse so we will see what happens! I never want to promise anything because every time I do I never end of fulfilling that promise. Aka life gets in the way and I'm somewhat the world's biggest procrastinator lol.


End file.
